Gentle Reader,Recently I’ve been saddened by the demise of several blogs that I follow. One is Wendy’s “Miranda Wandering”, which is/was an inspiration to doll story tellers everywhere. Miranda wandered by for six years – a long time for a little BJD, I suppose. It has made me think about the average life span of blogs. And that led to thinking about the average life span of people’s hobbies. I can’t imagine loosing interest in my ten inch gang – we’re almost at our ten year anniversary. I hope I don’t loose interest!! But I suppose there was a time in my life when I assumed I’d be interested in piecing quilts for all of my life time and there hasn’t been a quilt walk out of my workroom for decades now! R.

04.22.12 .... and now a day later, much worse news of the death of a good friend and fellow doll enthusiast. Candace, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. R.

Gentle Reader,Sudha, at work on the lichen phase of the broadband project, found that she needed a definitive census of the most common lichen at the top of the trees in the neighborhood. Annie Laurie had just what was needed from an old aeronautics project she worked on a couple of years ago! And not only that, several of the boys were eager to volunteer - didn't even need to pay them!!

Outfitting Christopher -- He's not crazy about the helmet, but the googles are cool!!

The right stuff, eh??!!

So with the harness all fitting correctly, the next step was to attach the wings. ("Wings?" you say. "Is this a good idea??") And LAUNCH!!!

"WHEEEEEE!!!!!!"

["Hey, it actually works!"]

"OK Chris, grab some lichens and come back down now. Chris? Chris??!!!"

"Yeeeehaaaaaa!!!!!!!"

"Chris?! Christopher?!!!!!"

"Where'd he go??" "Can you see him??" "Houston, we may have a problem."

Reminds me of an animation I made with one of those facial recognition programs way back when. This is a gif file, so I'm not sure Weebly will accept it, or if they do, whether "everyone" will be able to see it that way. Here goes!

Sophie in Tonner's outfit, with a few extra "props". I'm proud, and I think Andria is too, that our lobbying efforts in 2009 convinced Tonner to make this outfit (and a couple others) previously done for the 8" and/or 18" dolls, for the 10"ers.

Thrilled that the local museum is the temporary home for the famous "Pinkie" portrait by Thomas Lawrence, some of the girls decided to dress as pink as possible to go see the painting! Here is a photo of Pepper and MaryMary attempting to imitate Sarah Moulton's pose while Sudha takes their picture.

Pepper is a Creedy BJD; MaryMary is an Ashton/Drake Effner with Tonner legs; and Sudha has a Forever Friendz head on a Tonner body.

Moving along to the next painting in the gallery, each girl turned even more pink with blushes. Little did they know that they were going to be "mooned" . But then again, tomorrow is the Full Pink Moon!!!!!